K.C. Waters Show

In the evening before you go to sleep - under the full moon,
fill a glass with pure water and place it outside under
the sweet rays of our magnificent moon.

Sojourner Truth''I did not run off, for I thought that wicked, but I walked off, believing that to be all right''

I want to say a few words about this matter. I am a woman's rights. I have as much muscle as any man, and can do as much work as any man. I have plowed and reaped and husked and chopped and mowed, and can any man do more than that? I have heard much about the sexes being equal. I can carry as much as any man, and can eat as much too, if I can get it. I am as strong as any man that is now. As for intellect, all I can say is, if a woman have a pint, and a man a quart -- why can't she have her little pint full? You need not be afraid to give us our rights for fear we will take too much, -- for we can't take more than our pint'll hold. The poor men seems to be all in confusion, and don't know what to do. Why children, if you have woman's rights, give it to her and you will feel better. You will have your own rights, and they won't be so much trouble. I can't read, but I can hear. I have heard the bible and have learned that Eve caused man to sin. Well, if woman upset the world, do give her a chance to set it right side up again. The Lady has spoken about Jesus, how he never spurned woman from him, and she was right. When Lazarus died, Mary and Martha came to him with faith and love and besought him to raise their brother. And Jesus wept and Lazarus came forth. And how came Jesus into the world? Through God who created him and the woman who bore him. Man, where was your part? But the women are coming up blessed be God and a few of the men are coming up with them. But man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him, woman is coming on him, he is surely between a hawk and a buzzard.

The wicked see this universe as a hell, and the partially good see it as heaven, while the perfect beings realize it as God Himself. Only when a man sees this universe as God does the veil fall from his eyes; then that man, purified and cleansed, finds his whole vision changed.

- Vivekananda

Parh parh ilm te faazil hoya
Te kaday apnay aap nu parhya ee na

(You read to become
all knowledgeable
But you never read yourself)

You read so many books
to know it all,
yet fail to ever read your
heart at all.

This is what I say: Your mind is spiritual and so too is the sense-perceived world. The spirit is timeless and it dominates all existence as the great law guiding all beings in their search for truth. It changes crude nature into mind, and there is no being that can't be transformed into a vessel of truth.

-Brahmajala Sutra

Jana or Jani as she called herself, Janabai as she is known more formally, was a 13th C Marathi bhakti (devotional) poet. An orphan of the lowest caste, she went into domestic service with a family of tailors, while still very young. But this was no ordinary family, their son whom Jana helped raise, grew up to be the extraordinarily gifted poet-saint Namdev (1270?-1350?). Jana accepted him as her spiritual mentor and later became a bhakti poet herself, even though like many of her fellow bhakti poets, she never learnt to read or write. Namdev spent much of his life wandering the country as a mendicant-minstrel, but the spiritual bond between the two remained strong. According to legend, Janabai and Namdev died at exactly the same instant, so determined was she to not survive him by even a split second.

You must accept those who surrender to you

"O LORD, YOU BECOME A WOMAN."

by Janabai
(1298 - 1350?) Timeline
English version by
Sarah Sellergren

Original Language
Marathi

Yoga / Hindu : Vaishnava (Krishna/Rama)
14th Century

If the Ganga flows to the ocean
and the ocean turns her away,
tell me, O Vitthal,
who would hear her complaint?

Can the river reject its fish?
Can the mother spurn her child?

Jan says,
Lord,
you must accept those
who surrender to you.

The Grindstone

(Translated by Anjali Yardi)

My lovely grindstone

how sweetly it spins

as I sing your praise.

Come to me, Lord.

Twin poles of World and Spirit

are the smooth wooden handles

my five fingers grasp by turns.

Come to me, Lord.

My twelve or sixteen friends

all domestics like myself

gather in groups to praise you.

Come to me, Lord.

Mother-in-law father-in-law

and brother-in-law all join me

to sing your praise, my husband*.

Come to me, Lord.

The grindstone of life

grinds me down like grain.

I gather and pack the flour.

Come to me, Lord.

Spirit heats the vessel

the scum of sin boils over

the broth of virtue clears.

Come to me, Lord.

As the grindstone stops, says Jana

so will I one day. When I go

my fame I'll leave behind.

Come to me, Lord.

__________

*To address God as "husband" is a common conceit in bhakti poetry, here given a biographical twist in that the "in-laws" referred to are probably Namdev and his parents.
(Translated by Anjali Yardi)